cm to feet
Answered the way people say it: feet, then inches.
The short answer
170 cm is 5 ft 7 in. Divide the centimetres by 30.48 for the feet, then turn what is left over into inches at 2.54 cm each.
A height in centimetres almost never lands on a whole inch, so this rounds to the nearest half inch and tells you it has, rather than quietly dropping the remainder.
The formula
feet = cm ÷ 30.48, and the remainder ÷ 2.54 = inches
Worked examples
- 170 cm
- 5 ft 7 in
- 180 cm
- 5 ft 11 in
- 155 cm
- 5 ft 1 in
Reference table
| Centimetres | Feet and inches | Total inches |
|---|---|---|
| 150 cm | 4 ft 11 in | 59.1 in |
| 155 cm | 5 ft 1 in | 61 in |
| 160 cm | 5 ft 3 in | 63 in |
| 165 cm | 5 ft 5 in | 65 in |
| 170 cm | 5 ft 7 in | 66.9 in |
| 175 cm | 5 ft 9 in | 68.9 in |
| 180 cm | 5 ft 11 in | 70.9 in |
| 185 cm | 6 ft 1 in | 72.8 in |
| 190 cm | 6 ft 3 in | 74.8 in |
| 195 cm | 6 ft 5 in | 76.8 in |
How to use it
- 01Type the centimetresOne field, decimals allowed. The answer updates as you type.
- 02Read the feet and inchesThe figure is rounded to the nearest half inch, which is the finest marking most tape measures carry.
Also searched for
Searches that land here include cm to feet, cm to feet and inches, cm to ft, how tall am I in feet and convert centimetres to feet.
Centimetres into feet and inches
The arithmetic, in two steps
Divide the centimetres by 30.48 and the whole part is your feet. What is left over is a fraction of a foot: multiply it by twelve for the inches. Doing it in that order matters, because dividing by 2.54 first and then splitting into feet carries the rounding error into both numbers instead of one.
Why the answer is not exact
The conversion factor is exact, but the result of dividing by it usually is not. 170 centimetres is 66.929133858 inches, recurring, so any answer in feet and inches is a rounded one. That is not a flaw in the conversion. It is what happens when a measurement made on one scale is read off another, and it is why this page states what it rounded to rather than presenting a tidy number as though it were exact.
Measuring in the first place
Most people are a centimetre or so shorter than they think, usually because the original measurement was taken with shoes on or with the chin tipped up. Stand with your heels, bottom and shoulders against a wall, look straight ahead, and have someone mark the wall with a flat edge resting on the crown of your head. Do it in the morning; the spine compresses through the day.
Questions people ask
How tall is 170 cm in feet?
5 feet 7 inches, near enough. The exact figure is 66.93 inches, which is 5 feet and 6.93 inches, so it sits a sixteenth of an inch below 5 foot 7 and nobody would notice the difference.
Why does the answer round to a half inch?
Because the exact answer is almost always a recurring decimal, and an inch quoted to four decimal places is precision the measurement does not have. Half an inch is the finest marking on most tape measures and well below the amount a person's height varies through a single day.
Is there a standard adult height?
No, and the averages move by country and by decade. The figures worth knowing are your own, measured without shoes, first thing in the day, standing against a wall with your heels down.